[HANSON STORIES]

The Draedean Threat

{Year- 3090}
{Place- Denabux}
{Habitation- Hanson family home}


Chapter 11 - "We're pretty much safe, right?"



Isaac knelt down beside Zac who was tiredly scanning through the information Taylor had given about Sankt. Isaac heaved himself back to his feet and approached the drink dispenser and picked up the two steaming cups of herbal tea, native only to Denabux, and handed one cup of the soothing liquid to his younger sibling. Zac was against additives in what he drank so Isaac decided not to tell him about the tiny stimulant stick he discreetly dropped inside.
"Thanks man." Zac mumbled over the rim of his mug, stretching his exhausted body out in front of him.
Isaac took a seat next to Zac, who was lying comfortably on the sofa in the living room, and gulped down half of his tea, and the nearly all of the undissolved stim stick he noted sourly, he knew he'd be sure to have a jittery high soon, and decided to probe Zac for any information he might have found.
"Find anything exceptionally interesting about this Sankt character?"
Zac groaned tiredly and swung his legs around so he was in a sitting position and patted the couch beside him firmly so Isaac could see the portable view-screen he held.
"Well... it seems our Sankt friend's kinda popular." He pointed to a long list of names that held no meaning for Isaac.
"And that tells me… what?" Isaac asked sarcastically.
Zac gave him a withering look, his patience wearing a tad thinner, and stated, "Tay says he's gonna stop at The Gheldeth and visit," Zac put up the quotations symbols with both hands here, "some lady friends of his. And this." He split the screen into four sections and touched one of the sub-screens lightly which in turn caused it to fill the entire screen, "shows that the Gheldeth has some up and downs seasons. Sankt helps out in times of 'down seasons' so the trade center doesn't go in dept or anything."
"And how does that help us understand Sankt?"
Zac held his irritation inside, "Sankt's in the Selvmatej system and…"
"How do you know?" Interrupted Isaac.
Zac gave Isaac a grin that showed that his teeth were clamped together, "If you'd let me finish a sentence before cutting me off you might find a thing or two out. Clear?"
Isaac smiled innocently.
"As I was saying before a certain somebody opened his mouth Sankt's based in the Selvmatej system and the Gheldeth is four systems over. It takes Tay two weeks to get from Sankt's place to Draedon and it takes him eleven or twelve days to get to the Gheldeth from where Sankt is. Depending on the speed of his drive units."
"We should ask him next time we talk."
"Yup." Zac agreed, waiting for further questions from Isaac.
Isaac got a worried look on his face then, "How far away are we from Sankt? I mean Selvmatej?"
Zac bit his lip for a moment, knowing that he'd read the information but he wasn't sure if he could remember. He sighed and tapped on the screen a few times before he found what he wanted. His eyes bugged.
"What?" Came cautiously from the eldest of the Hanson kids.
"We're not too far off from him... only two systems!" Zac felt insecure knowing this.
Isaac leaned forward on his part of the couch, "But we're on a colony planet in a colony system. This place wasn't found very long ago. How can we be so close to a civilized place like that?"
Zac pulled up a map and studied it for a moment, "That's why."
He pointed to a section of the screen and blew it up to a larger size.
"This is Sankt," He pointed to a small spattering of planets, "And this is us." He pointed to a set of terrestrial planets that were quite a distance from the previous point he'd touched.
"Oooh... we're pretty far apart there aren't we?"
Zac nodded, "That and this system wasn't in the search pattern they set out. Look." His fingers glided over the screen and part of the map became highlighted in a cone shaped section that was the opposite of their position.
"Don't we feel loved?" Isaac quipped.
"Hell yeah." Zac muttered.
Isaac felt the stim stick moving through his body. He stood up quickly and clapped his hands together, "So.that means we're pretty safe from him right?"
Zac's dark-blonde mane whirled around when he shook his head in confusion, "Why would we be in any danger in the first place?"
"Cause Tay said he's a liability to us. Sankt could hunt us down and kill us if he felt like it."
Zac gulped, "No. 'Member, Tay said we were safe because he wouldn't tell Sankt where we are."
"True." Isaac held off the rest of his comment, "but there are other ways for us to be found.so many ways."
The fifteen-year-old let out a thoughtful grunt as he put away the maps and star charts and brought out information on Sankt himself.
"Oh Ikey-poo." Zac sang out sweetly.
Isaac turned his attentions back to his younger brother as he sank into the soft cushions of the sofa.
"Did you know Sankt's a bounty hunter too? And he does a major amount of scouting and hunting on the preserves."
Isaac felt fear lacing a tight braid in his mind, "No… does Tay?"
Zac shook his head 'no" but he wasn't entirely sure.
Isaac wasn't able to connect to the same brain wave that Zac was on.
"He's a bounty hunter. That means he hunts down people that are hiding and that owe something to some one. Scouting means he knows how to fly ships and he damn well knows how to fly fast ones cause all scout ships are fast. Last, he hunts. Killer aim." Zac waved his hand in front of himself for a moment to see if Isaac got it yet.
Not a chance.
Zac sighed in exasperation, "He can find Tay. Tay's not a scout, he's not a hunter. but he has nice aim." Zac remembered his first meeting with Taylor they'd had in ages, "And mom and dad wouldn't and don't let us hunt. Where does that leave the score?"
"Shit.shit! If he finds out about the draetons.damn it! How'd he get himself into so much trouble?" Isaac clenched his fists.
"He's Tay." Zac stated, as if that were enough information to answer the question of Isaac's.
"Bring that map back up. I wanna know how fast Sankt could get here if he were on...what's the fastest civilian scout out right now?"
Zac broke the screen up again and dug up more information, "Uhm... the Galactic7."
"Good. I wanna know how fast he can get here from the Selvmatej system in a Galactic7."
A moment later: "Six days."
Isaac nodded slowly, disappointed, "And the Gheldeth?"
"Eight or nine days... depends on which way he would go and the drive unit."
"Don't all the Seven's have the same unit?"
"You could upgrade pretty easy and..."
Isaac flapped his hand in Zac's general direction, "I know.God."
Zac ignored him, "Tay hasn't called yet has he?"
Isaac noted the time and asked about Gheldeth time.
"About the same hour's difference. Why?"
Isaac started pacing around the furniture, "He always calls on time."
Zac snorted, "Ike… he said he'd call every week when he left. He didn't call for like... a YEAR." He stressed the word.
Isaac shrugged, "I dunno... something's off."
Zac suggested that it was time for some shuteye so his, 'brain wouldn't suffer from a core meltdown in record time.' Isaac quickly agreed and led the way to their separate rooms. Right before he nodded off, Isaac felt an odd sensation in his stomach but he shrugged it off and slipped away into the land of sleep.

{Year- 3090}
{Place- Orbit around the gas giant, Granchegase}
{Habitation- The Trade Ship Gheldeth}


Taylor ran his fingers down the side of the young woman's body, dipping in at the waist and rising up along her gentle hips. She shifted in her sleep and turned over on her back, hauling all the blankets along with her. Taylor stifled a quiet chuckle and grabbed a handful of the fabric in attempts of winning back some of the warm material. The young woman, Della, moaned and her eyes suddenly fluttered open in surprise. Then she smiled warmly.
"Hey." She glanced down at his nude body, "Sorry." She blushed, mushing the covers back towards Taylor.
He smiled and covered his body in modesty, "It's ok." He ran a finger over her thin lips and leaned in to kiss them softly.
A firm hand on the chest stopped him. Taylor's eyes darted side to side for a moment in nervous curiosity.
"What." His gentle voice whispered while a hand brushed a piece of brown hair out of Della's eyes.
Della opened her mouth once but clamped it shut a second later. She looked like she was thinking quickly as her eyes darted to the clock, "Tay... Sankt knows." She blurted out.
Taylor blanched and pulled his hand back, "About what?"
"That you sold them... he's coming here soon... he's… he's got a new warp drive in his ship."
He stopped her fractional phrases by holding a hand up, "So? It's a new drive. How much time could that possibly cut off?"
"Four days... five. It depends on which way he takes. It's not a civilian issue drive either." Her shaky voice answered.
It had taken him four days to get to the Gheldeth because Clep had pulled the ship out of hyperspace and told him that there was an unidentified ship coming straight for them and would not return a welcoming call. It turned out to be old wreckage from a starcraft that had failed to miss a nearby asteroid. Taylor wanted to investigate the cruiser but he found nothing after five hours of searching and told his ship to go back into hyperspace and to let him be for the time being.
"Do you know when he'll be here?" His voice fluttered.
A single tear rolled down her cheek, "He just docked at the closest bay."
Della reached behind her ear and pulled out the hearing receptor and tossed it across the room.
"You have time Taylor. Run... you might make it."
Taylor looked frantic for a moment but he forced himself to calm down. He jumped to his feet in a frenzy of long arms and legs that hurriedly began to gather up articles of clothing; tronflex boxers, tronflex pants, tronflex shirt and jacket with a nice hoodie, and tronflex boots. He didn't have time to feel ashamed about his wardrobe at the moment. He was using the floor to jam a boot on as he leaned across the bed and gave the young women a quick kiss and smoothed a hand down her cheek.
"Thanks for everything."
Della's lip quivered as Taylor slapped his hand over the palm reader. The door whisked open with a small 'whoosh' and the young man slipped out into the cramped hallways of the worker's corridor. The time he spent with Della was quickly forgotten as he strode through the passages.
Thick metal walls wouldn't let sound from inner rooms penetrate the halls that were spreading out more as they neared the vendors and shops but they did allow voices to create quite a loud series of echoes to be heard. Taylor's ears detected such a phenomena coming from his left and the unmistakable growls of a Draedean barking orders at everybody around him.
"Sankt." Taylor bit his lip and took a sprinting leap forward and slipped around a corner just in time to miss Sankt's large body turning down the very passage he'd just escaped.
"Thank you so much Della."

The soft smacking of his boots on the cold floor were making Taylor nervous about being discovered. Knowing Sankt, he probably had the place crawling with associates and hired help to better the Draedean's odds of finding him. Not a comforting thought. A light in front of him was interrupted by a large shadow holding something before his body in a manner that would suggest that it was a gun. Taylor sucked in a quick mouthful of air and slammed himself against a nearby indent that he quickly found was a door by the hard knob jabbing uncomfortably into his back. He held his breath and prayed that this person wasn't connected to Sankt and that if he was, that he wouldn't have a thermal tracker; Taylor was sweating like mad.

The lagamorph was creeping stealthily down the long passage, poking his flexible neck around doorways. Much to Taylor's annoyance, the very thermal tracker that he feared was strapped to the forearm of the creature as he waved it around like a magic wand, trying to locate any source of heat. The morpher pointed the wand straight at Taylor. The creature's head jerked up and away from the small screen that showed heat readings and its glare pinned Taylor to the door so that he wasn't able to move. It gave a crying hoot into the air and charged straight for the trembling teen. Suddenly, the door behind Taylor was pulled open and he tumbled into the dark room. A large woman squawked her displeasure and slammed the door, trying to get Taylor's foot in the process. She failed to do damage to the young man but did succeed in causing quite a bit of pain for one lagamorph who was still pounding on the door.

The portly woman held her hand over the palm reader in a threatening manner, "You have five seconds to tell me who you are and what that thing wants with you or I'll open the door and let him have you."
Taylor opened his mouth and blurted the first thing that came to mind.


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